My Father's World

by Michael Phillips

  When she came around the corner of the building, driving that team of mules with the reins in her hands, something inside me swelled up—pleasure, maybe, at something so rugged and western. Maybe it was just that she was a woman, like I might be someday. I don’t know. But it made me feel proud to see her perched up there on the seat of that wagon, calling out orders to them mules and swinging them into line, looking just as natural as she did behind one of her fine Chippendale tables or at her desk in the freight office. She was a fine-looking, strong woman, who seemed able to do most anything.

  She jumped down off the wagon and gathered us children around her. “You know,” she said gently and apologetically, “I wouldn’t go today if I didn’t have to. But this is the last big supply run before winter sets in, and I must take all three wagons.” She was back to talking in her soft Boston voice, and coming from a buckskin-dressed woman, looking fit for riding on the range, it did seem a mite unusual.

  “I will be gone at least two weeks, maybe more. But as I said, I want you to make yourselves at home in my house. Mrs. Gianini will look in on you from time to time. I wish I didn’t have to leave you, but—”

  Before she could finish her sentence, the sound of approaching hoofbeats made us all abruptly turn our heads. Mr. Drum, on his bay mare, half-skidded to a stop right there in front of the freight office, followed by a big cloud of dust from the street.

  He jumped off his horse and strode up to us. He looked around quickly, then stared right at me for a second. His eyes seemed to be swimming in tears. As I returned his gaze, suddenly something inside my brain seemed to dawn, and all at once I realized I knew those eyes staring at mine! In an instant, all the funny little questions that had been nagging me the last couple of days started to fit together. At the same time, I told myself it couldn’t possibly be!

  There wasn’t time to reflect on it, however. Just as quickly, he looked away from me, placed his hands on his hips, and spoke in a voice that was resolved, even if he had difficulty saying what he intended.

  “I’ve come for the kids,” he said.

  “Did you find Uncle Nick?” asked Tad excitedly, having no idea what was happening.

  “No, boy, I didn’t find your uncle,” he replied. “But I don’t figure that matters none now.”

  “What do you mean, Mr. Drum?” asked Mrs. Parrish, surprised as any of us.

  “Just that, Ma’am,” he said. “You see . . . my name ain’t Drum—well, not exactly, that is.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she answered. “Nor do I see what this has to do with the children.”

  “Perhaps if I could just have a word in private with you, Ma’am,” he said.

  She nodded, saying nothing, and he followed her into the office. The four younger children watched with bewildered eyes. But I knew what he was telling her. I should have known from the first. My heart was beating wildly now!

  When they came back a minute or two later, Mrs. Parrish had a handkerchief in her hand, which she used to dab at her eyes every so often. She was the first one to speak.

  “I have some very wonderful news to tell you all,” she began. Her voice was soft and husky. Then she turned to Drum and said, “But I think you should be the one to tell them your real name.”

  The man stepped forward, cleared his throat awkwardly, then stumbling over the words, began, “You see, kids, when I came here, I was in a heap of trouble, like your uncle is now. So I didn’t want folks to know who I really was. I changed my name a little, and let the rumor get out that I was dead, so the men looking for me would stop trying to hunt me down. But like I told Mrs. Parrish, Drum’s not my name—well, not my last name, anyway. More like a nickname, you might say, which I let folks think was my last name. Really it’s my first name—Drummond. . . .”

  Even before the word was out of his mouth I found myself moving toward him, tears blurring my eyes. I reached his side and slowly put my arm around his great big waist, hardly hearing the rest of what he said to the other kids.

  “Drummond, that’s my name . . . Drummond Hollister. You see, kids, I’m your pa, and I ain’t dead at all.”

  Chapter 10

  Another Wagon Ride

  The ride out to the claim was almost eerily quiet. Nobody said a word till we were over halfway there, and Pa seemed content to let it be that way, looking straight ahead and holding the reins in his hands.

  He and Marcus Weber had hitched up Snowball and Jinx to our wagon, and before we knew it we were sitting there again, as we had for most of the last six months, riding out of Miracle Springs with none other than our own pa sitting on the bench driving, his bay mare following along behind. It was sure some sudden change.

  I knew Becky, Emily, and Tad were probably more bewildered than anything. They’d all been too young even to remember Pa. After all, he left even before Tad was born. But I figured Zack remembered him. He’d have been around four or five, and I knew his silence wasn’t just from the bewilderment of the sudden turn of events. Even though Ma had never bad-mouthed Pa, the harshness of her life—all our lives—after he left spoke for itself. Zack and I were old enough to feel hurt and even angry sometimes.

  It didn’t help that Grandpa Belle never had a good word to say about Pa, and even at times seemed to go out of his way to speak ill of Pa in our hearing. Zack thought a lot of Grandpa—a boy needs a man around, and Grandpa was all Zack had. So I had a feeling some of Grandpa’s words were going around in Zack’s mind. I could tell he was struggling with just how he was supposed to feel about this man who was his pa, but who had left him when he needed him most, like Grandpa used to tell him. Maybe some of the same things were going through Pa’s mind too.

  As for me, now that we were all there in the wagon together and I had a chance to think, I could hardly believe I didn’t recognize Pa right away. The beard changed his looks considerably, of course, and the hat. But you’d have thought I’d have known the eyes and voice right off.

  Funny, though, how the mind plays tricks on you. Maybe some part of me, way deep down inside someplace, did remember the voice. And I noticed his eyes the first time he walked out of that saloon. But another part of the mind can block out the memory altogether. The feeling of pain comes back, the hurt of the loss, and wipes out the memory. “It’s God’s mercy you kids is young,” Ma used to say, “You’ll forget your pa soon enough, and his being gone will be easier on you.”

  But Ma never could forget Pa, and I don’t doubt her pain was awful. She hardly ever said anything against Pa and even tried to hush Grandpa when he’d get started. There were times when she did flare up about Pa though, like when Tad was a baby—colicky and crying, and chores needed to be done, and us older kids were bickering or whining over some little thing. Or when some snooty neighbor would make some careless remark about us being abandoned. Then she’d come close to blaming him for everything, but I think it was just her way of hiding the shame and hurt she felt at being left alone. With all that, I know she never stopped loving him. Her words on the day she died seemed to prove that, though I guess I never heard her say it too often.

  We all sat there quietly, bouncing along the dirt road, Pa encouraging the horses along every now and then with a slap of the reins. Zack and I sat on each side of him, staring straight ahead, and the three little ones dozed in the bed of the wagon. Here we were—orphaned less than two months ago, left alone on the streets of Miracle Springs with no one wanting to take us in, handed around from one place and one person to the next—from Captain Dixon to Miss Baxter, to Mrs. Gianini, to Mrs. Parrish, and now all of a sudden here we were sitting in our own wagon again with our very own pa! You’d have thought we’d have all been shouting and laughing with joy. But we all sat silent and somber. I guess it didn’t feel so much different than if he had been a stranger sitting there. There would probably have been more talking if it had been Captain Dixon. We certainly knew him better than this strange man called Drummond Hollister. All we knew about him was what Ma ha
d told us—which was very little—and what Grandpa Belle had said, which was more than we wanted to hear.

  “I’m real sorry about your ma,” Pa said, breaking the silence abruptly.

  An awkward moment or two followed. No one said anything.

  “How’d it happen?” he asked, still staring out over the horses’ heads.

  “Fever,” I said, “out in the desert.”

  “She broke her ankle, Mr. Drum,” piped up Becky from behind.

  He started to answer her, thought better of it, and kept it in. I didn’t know whether to correct her or not, but I kept quiet too. Zack was stone-faced. He didn’t seem to like Pa at all.

  We rode on for another ten minutes or so. Then all at once, without even planning it, I heard my own voice: “Why didn’t you tell us who you were right off, sir?” I blurted out. “Why’d you say you didn’t want us?”

  The words sounded bold in my own ears. Probably the way they really came out was soft and sheepish. And even though Pa just kept staring straight ahead, I could tell he’d heard me and was thinking hard.

  “Well . . . Cornelia,” he hesitated at my name. I think it was uncomfortable for him to say it for the first time, but I liked hearing him say it.

  “ . . . is that still what they call you?” he asked after a pause.

  “Folks started calling me Corrie, sir,” I answered. “I guess it was after you . . . left.”

  I thought I saw Pa wince, but with the beard it was hard to tell.

  “Well . . . Corrie,” he said, “when Dixon came into the Gold Nugget sayin’ something about a bunch of kids looking for a fellow named Matthews, I didn’t pay much heed. For all I knew, he mighta been one of the sheriff’s men tryin’ to get an angle on Nick. An the game was mighty hot, so the boys shut him up real quick. But then that Parrish woman barged in like she did, upsettin’ everything, and insistin’ I come out and do something about them—you kids, that is, . . . well, it kinda caught me off guard.”

  He stopped and a questioning look came over his face.

  “How’d your ma ever find out about Nick?” he asked.

  “A fellow from Bridgeville came back from California and told her he’d seen Uncle Nick and that he was using a different name.”

  Pa shook his head. “Nick never said nothin’ to me—the blamed fool! He’s determined to get the both of us strung up yet!”

  “But,” I said—maybe I was being forward, but I still had my questions—“after you came out and saw it was us, why didn’t you say anything right then?”

  “’Cause it was a shock to see you standin’ there,” he said matter-of-factly. “And besides, hearin’ about your ma’s dying, just then—well, it sort of—”

  He stopped again.

  “You must know what I mean,” he half-blurted out after a moment. “She was my wife, you know . . . mother to my kids. It weren’t none too pleasant to hear out of the blue that she was dead.”

  I couldn’t help wondering why it took him all this time to start having feelings of affection for Ma and the rest of us. It didn’t seem to me that he’d have cared one way or the other about her dying. Maybe I was being too hard on him. But maybe I had more hurt in me than I realized, too. I couldn’t see how Ma could have been so forgiving of him. It just didn’t make much sense to me what he was saying.

  “You still could have told us who you were,” I said.

  “It just ain’t that simple,” he said. “I had lots of things on my mind.”

  “Things more important than us?”

  “Things kids can’t understand. I had to have some time to think.”

  “But we had no place to go, and you said you wouldn’t take us!” I was afraid I was going to start crying any minute. I should have stopped, and I knew he had every right to box me if I went on, but I just couldn’t stop the words from pouring out. As I remembered all he’d said outside the saloon just three days ago, I felt more and more hurt by what he’d done.

  “I know . . . and I’m sorry about that,” he said, his voice sounding earnest enough. “But I had to try to find Nick and see what he knew about all this; I had to look out for him—the blasted idiot! Don’t you see? I had to talk to him before I could say anythin’ out in public.”

  I guess I didn’t see, but I kept my mouth shut. Even though part of me was wanting to break out and give Pa a bunch of hugs and kisses, another part of me—maybe the part of Grandpa in me—was riled and hurt. And I just couldn’t get the two parts to agree on what to do.

  “The men were all listenin’ . . . and they all think I’m Drum. And I gotta keep it that way! For your good as well as my own . . . and Nick’s.”

  “Did you find Uncle Nick?” I asked softly, after another minute.

  Pa sighed. “No, he ain’t nowhere anybody’s seen him,” he said. “On top of everything, now he’s gone and got himself in trouble with the sheriff here, as if we didn’t have trouble enough already! And now with the five of you showin’ up outta nowhere, and with someone back East who can identify him . . . I don’t know what we’re gonna do. He may have brung us a pack of trouble!”

  He gave the reins a little flick of his wrist and coaxed the horses over a patch of bumpy ground.

  I decided it was best for me to keep my thoughts to myself for a while. For the life of me I couldn’t figure why any of what he said made it right for him to ignore us, and not let on he was our pa. I didn’t see how it made it right for him to leave Ma and us alone all those years either, or to let us think he was dead.

  The clicking of his tongue, the groaning sounds of leather and wood, and the jostling wagon wheels filled in the silence. We certainly weren’t off to the joyful kind of start you’d expect from such a family reunion. Ma had been our family, and with her gone we really didn’t have one anymore. Pa had never really been part of our family. When he left, he cut himself off from us. Whatever that meant to us kids, it hurt Ma real bad. And I didn’t see how we were going to be able to forget it that easily. He may have been our pa, but that still didn’t make him part of our family.

  I guess Zack must have been thinking some similar sorts of things, ’cause all at once he blurted out, and didn’t even try to hide the resentment in his voice: “You still ain’t told us why you deserted us and left me with no pa!”

  I could see Pa’s eyes wince at Zack’s blunt question—I couldn’t tell whether from exasperation or real pain. He drew in a deep breath, resignation building on his face, and then, without turning his head, replied, “You don’t understand how it was at all, boy,” he said. “There just ain’t no way you can understand!”

  He picked up the whip and flipped it. The leather thong at the end of the line gave a sharp crack as it slapped against Snowball’s rump. The horse jumped into a trot.

  Chapter 11

  Our New Home

  Pa and Uncle Nick had a cabin on their claim, less than a mile from the clearing where Becky had gotten herself lost. Once we got there, I could see why Pa had gotten so vexed with Mrs. Parrish. I wondered if it was an accident we’d had our picnic right there.

  The cabin was small and dirty. If Ma had seen it, not knowing it was Pa’s, she’d have either called it rustic or just a shack—depending on what kind of mood she was in. I didn’t want to say anything negative right away, but after spending two days at Mrs. Parrish’s, I suppose our faces showed our disappointment once we were all crowded inside.

  “It ain’t much, I admit,” said Pa. “But Nick and I didn’t build it with five kids in mind. I’ll add a room on in the mornin’,” he said matter-of-factly, like it was nothing.

  At least it sounded hopeful. In fact, he decided that since it was still early in the day, he’d go right out and start cutting some timber. He told me to bring our stuff inside and take care of the young’uns, and then turned to Zack. “Let’s go . . . Zachary.”

  Zack glanced toward me, and I nodded for him to go along.

  “You got a nickname like your sister, boy? What do folks in a hurr
y call you?”

  “Just Zack, sir.”

  “That’s always what I figured to call you when you got bigger. Well, Zack, you’re pretty big now, I reckon, so you grab that axe there and come with me.”

  Zack had been completely quiet since his outburst on the wagon. I’m not sure if Pa was trying to be nice by taking him. But at his age, there was nothing Zack wanted more than to be treated like a man. So even though I could still see the silent anger on his face, I knew he was pleased.

  “You keep them young’uns outta the creek and away from the mine,” he sternly admonished me, and then he tramped off into the woods, with Zack hurrying to keep up.

  Emily and I, with a little help from Becky and none at all from Tad, spent the day cleaning and trying to make a place where the five of us could sleep. We had our sleeping gear out in the wagon, but finding a place to bed down, especially as disorderly as everything was, became a chore. I’d never seen a place so in need of cleaning as that one-room cabin!

  By sundown we had the house as close to shining as a bare-wood cabin can get, with a pot of beans bubbling over the open fire in a big black pot. I even got a tablecloth from Ma’s things to put on the coarse board table set in the middle of the floor. Becky completed the look of civilization with a bowl of wild flowers. I’d been so busy I didn’t see her slip away. I didn’t ask how far she’d gone or where she’d gotten them. But at least she hadn’t gotten lost this time. I gave her a big hug and smiled at her. I could tell the flowers were her way of trying to make Pa glad we were there. All of us were a little scared I think, still not knowing if Pa was going to be mean or nice to us. All we really knew of him was what Ma had said, but we couldn’t help wanting to make him like us.

  When Pa walked through the door, I tried to read the reaction on his face. I had already begun to figure out that he wasn’t likely to say what he felt in so many words.